‘Hipster eugenics’: why is the media cosying up to people who want to build a super race?

Simone and Malcolm Collins are a thirtysomething couple with three kids called Torsten, Octavian and Titan Invictus. (They refuse to give their girls traditionally feminine names because they think that means they’ll get taken less seriously.) The Pennsylvania-based pair plan on having at least eight children and hope each of their children can have eight children so that, in 11 generations, the world will ooze with their bloodline and there will be more Collinses stalking the Earth than there are people alive today.

A bit weird, right? Maybe the sort of fantasy you’d be best off keeping to yourself? The Collinses disagree. They’ve made themselves the poster children of “pro-natalism” and are taking it upon themselves to combat what they describe as “fertility collapse” – not only by having multiple kids themselves but by trying to push for policies that would increase birth rates in the developed world. The media is paying attention to their crusade: Britain’s Telegraph profiled the pair this week, with the headline “Meet the ‘elite’ couples breeding to save mankind”. This...